3 ways to build brand awareness

Over the past five years, paid media and acquisition costs have skyrocketed, making it increasingly challenging for brands to reach new customers through paid advertising alone. For direct-to-consumer brands, in particular, this has caused significant disruption and revenue decline.

As the CEO and founder of wellness brand Bearaby, I have experienced this shift in the digital marketing landscape and know that it is increasingly necessary to experiment with outside-the-box methods to build branded consumer awareness. Brands are diversifying beyond paid media to reach consumers. Here are three methods I’ve found to be effective and why I believe they work.

1. Experiential marketing
   As an e-commerce brand, providing unique and valuable in-person experiences helps you reach new, highly engaged brand loyalists.

   When we were looking to expand Bearaby’s in-person presence, we took inspiration from on-the-ground ambassador programs frequently adopted by apparel brands. Lululemon, for example, has focused on cultivating a community of fitness instructors who are intensely loyal to the brand, tapping into strong preexisting communities within their target demographic.

   The key to successful experiential activations is tailoring the experience to your product. Consider whether seeing the product is enough for potential customers or would new customers prefer to interact with it more extensively? What is the most important factor that will influence a new customer’s decision to purchase—or, even better, to buy into your brand values and get on board with your mission?

   At Bearaby, we’ve leaned into the benefits of weighted blankets for meditation by partnering with wellness studios like Remedy Place, Sage + Sound, and THE WELL to include weighted blankets in sound bath and meditation experiences. Visitors get to feel the full benefits of resting under a weighted blanket, while learning about an often overlooked use case for the product. As a result of these activations, meditation instructors and wellness enthusiasts have become organic brand advocates, incorporating weighted blankets into their personal practice and beyond.

   Whether you activate your product through traditional ambassadors, a pop-up shop, or a unique one-of-a-kind event, staying true to your brand’s authentic mission is the key to finding success through experiential marketing.

2. Proximity marketing
   If an ad spend doesn’t allow you to meet consumers where they are, consider meeting them somewhere nearby. For example, a Super Bowl ad will run you $7 million dollars, but creating on-site experiences in the host city, or targeting digital out-of-home screens in fan hubs, may allow you to reach the most engaged consumers at a fraction of the cost. This is an excellent way to make the most of big events without going over budget. You can apply this same strategy to smaller, localized events that draw super fans who fit your audience.

   For direct-to-consumer brands, it can also be useful to examine retail partnerships through the lens of proximity marketing. Brands often focus on the high sales volumes that come through securing placement in national chains, but placement in smaller, targeted boutiques lends itself to a more branded experience, potentially amplifying your presence in a particular state, city, or neighbourhood.

   If you’re hoping to achieve this, proper branding and signage remain essential. Even if a customer doesn’t choose to buy your product, they should have an opportunity to see your brand name, read more about it, or enter your digital marketing funnel.

3. Stunt marketing
   Stunt marketing should be true to your brand while containing an unexpected element. Nobody would be surprised by Duolingo offering in-person language lessons, but when the brand went as far as to open a taqueria where diners could practice their Spanish in exchange for discounts, people took notice!

   For newer brands, it can be helpful to tie stunt marketing to a particular holiday or time of year—something in the cultural landscape that already has people’s attention.

   April Fools’ Day is a great time to flex your stunt marketing muscle with plenty of wiggle room for experimentation. Consumers are on the lookout for surprising, playful activations from the brands they know best, so they’re prepared to be delighted by something truly over the top.

   At Bearaby, we’ve seen community engagement skyrocket during fake product launches for April Fools’ Day, like our weighted blanket for hedgehogs. Our most recent “Bearabulky” April Fools’ campaign gave us valuable product feedback. We launched a fake 50-pound weighted stuffed bear, and brand fans we had never heard from before started sharing that they would love to purchase a slightly heavier version of our real 3.5-pound weighted stuffed animals. This stunt campaign helped us catch the attention of new customers, while simultaneously strengthening our understanding of our existing community.

   When planning a stunt marketing campaign, it’s important to cater to both brand fans and new customers without alienating either group. Before launching your campaign, think through what success will look like for both groups and let that guide your messaging and budget.

With paid ads continuing to become more expensive, brand building will be put to the test more than ever. The more expensive it is to acquire a new customer, the more critical it will be for that customer to have a touchpoint where they can buy into your mission and become a brand fan. Strategies like experiential, proximity, and stunt marketing won’t replace the need for digital ads, but they can be high-value extensions of the brand backbone that ultimately makes paid advertising pay off.